English majors study original works of fiction - and non-fiction - and learn how to write compelling arguments about those works. The SLU Department of English, like many English departments, not only teaches courses on major authors and in major periods of British and American literature but is also home to creative writing, rhetoric, critical theory, postcolonial literature, African-American writing, native American writing, gender and sexuality, and the history of the English language. We also teach new and emergent areas of the discipline: film, new media, ecocriticism, literature and technology, business and professional writing, literature and pedagogy Through the study of language, literature, and film, students understand cultural values and meanings; they understand persuasive argumentation; they develop analytical thinking and effective writing skills; they learn about literary forms, literary genres, and literary history (the characteristics of, for example, the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Victorian periods, as well as the differences between them; literary and artistic movements such as Romanticism and Modernism); theyappreciate human creativity; they engage imaginatively with the experiences of diverse people from different times and cultures.